


All of Me (wants All of You)

by mybrotherharry



Series: Letting Go [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, BDSM, Bondage, Consensual Kink, Dom Felicity, Dom/sub, Dominance, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Punishment, Risk Aware Consensual Kink, Romance, Sensory Deprivation, Submission, Submissive Oliver Queen, sub oliver
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-20
Updated: 2015-11-20
Packaged: 2018-05-02 14:45:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5252171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mybrotherharry/pseuds/mybrotherharry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Felicity finds a way to get Oliver to forgive himself. It only takes one contract, two weeks of revisions, rules, arrangements and punishments before they get there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All of Me (wants All of You)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RosieTwiggs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosieTwiggs/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Lengths](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2284098) by [RosieTwiggs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosieTwiggs/pseuds/RosieTwiggs). 



> Yes, I have been annoyed by the lack of submissive Oliver Queen fics in the fandom. I thought I should do something to fix it. I have nobody to blame but myself. This fic has no explicit sexual acts. Yes, I just wrote 6,000 words of BDSM without sex. I don't know how I managed that. 
> 
> I am terrible at timelines. All you need to know is that nothing is same as cannon after S2x01, and that Oliver and Felicity get together sometime in season 2. 
> 
> Everything in this fic is consensual: Oliver and Felicity have discussed beforehand every little detail of what is allowed and what is not. Still, do NOT use this fic as guidepost for BDSM. It is NOT. Be safe, and consult resources that are NOT fanfiction.

**Now**

She returns home to find the lights in the living room dimmed, the carpets cleaned and the apartment spotless. It is apparent that he has been hard at work. She had forgotten that it was cleaning day.

She wrote that schedule for him, but he has been so good at keeping up that she rarely has to punish him for forgetting something.

She sniffs, and realizes that the additional aroma drifting about the place is parmigiana. Eggplant, she realizes. Candles are burning low on the dining table and he has opened a bottle of wine to let it breathe.

He has cooked dinner, which is not out of the ordinary. But he has gone the extra mile today, made something special. She hopes he did not screw up.

Sometimes, Oliver can be extra-ordinarily boneheaded about avoiding punishment.

She shrugs off her jacket and hangs it up in the closet before settling on the couch, her fingers unthreading the fastenings of her stilettos. These are his favorite pair on her, but they are killing when worn for long periods of time. Today had involved a lot of standing at Palmer Tech, and in the afternoon, running behind the Arrow through dirty alleyways. Her life was very weird.

She finds him, as always, on his knees beside the coffee table. The rug underneath is clean and smells like daisies. He reaches for her feet, helping her pull off the killer stilettos.

“Good evening, Felicity,” he murmurs, looking at her through his eyelashes.

“Hello baby,” she runs her fingers through his hair, which he is growing out a little after her insistence. She groans, as his fingers press into sensitive spots on the soles of her feet. Nobody has mastered the art of the foot-rub like Oliver Queen. It’s his penance for liking her in heels so much. “We are all fancied up for dinner tonight. What did you do?”

“Nothing,” she can hear his smile in the response. “Felt like doing something special.”

“Am I forgetting an anniversary?” she wonders.

He shakes his head, head still lowered and fingers working magic on her feet.

“Use your words, pet,” she insists. “We have talked about this. Words.”

“No, you are not forgetting an anniversary,” he replies, breathing with the words like she taught him. “No occasion, no reason. Just felt like making it a special date night. I thought I was allowed to.”

“Of course you are,” she smiles, and juts his chin up to meet his gaze. “You are too good for me.” She leans in to kiss him, pressing her palm to the back of his head to hold him close.

“That is just – patently untrue,” he laughs against her lips, pouting when she leans away. He stretches forward, trying to catch her bottom lip between his teeth again. They do this dance every single evening, Oliver trying to stretch out the farthest without his knees actually leaving the floor.  Often, like tonight, he fails. He is leaning forward, knees in the air, using his elbows on the couch to bear his weight.

“Stay, pet,” she scolds. He immediately lowers his knees back to the ground, mouth still seeking her lips. He looks up at her, an adorable mess of need and helplessness.

“Don’t give me the eyes. You know the rules,” she says, leaning forward to kiss away his pout. “Did you put the bad guys away after I left?”

“Mm-hmm,” he hums, his eyes closed as he rests his cheek on her lap. “Dig and I left them handcuffed outside the precinct office. Sorry about the running.”

“Not your fault,” she murmurs, fingers tracing strands of his hair. They are soft and gorgeous under her hands. “I should have worn the sensible heels.”

“I like these,” he states, and she feels his smile against her thigh.

“I bet you do,” she smirks. “What else did the Arrow do this afternoon?”

“The Arrow didn’t do much else,” he says. “Oliver went to his four pm class.”

“I worry about how you effortlessly jump between your roles in the second person,” she says, because she does worry. “That is not healthy.”

“Felicity,” he says, and like always, his voice embraces her name, surrounds it and feels it out like he is saying it for the first time all over again, “nothing we do can even come close to being called healthy. I don’t know how normal people cope with things.”

“This is normal, sweetheart,” she smiles into his hair, bending forward to kiss his scalp. “This is our normal. Did you have lunch?”

He stiffens against her legs, his breathing becoming instantly hitched and quick. Months of this relationship and she knows his every tell. Right now, all of them, from the stiff line of his shoulders to his obstinate refusal to remove his face from where it’s buried in her lap, all of them scream _I-broke-one-of-the-rules-without-a-life-threatening-Arrow-emergency-for-an-excuse._

“No special occasion, my arse,” she grits out. “I knew it. The parmigiana recipe doesn’t come out unless you are feeling guilty about something.”

“I am sorry,” he says, pressing his face into her lap.

“When did you get to the Academy?” she asks, referring to the martial arts academy that Oliver and Dig run together. They were using it as a front for the Arrow’s hideout, but it had the additional benefit of Oliver finding something enjoyable to do with his time. She pulls the hair at the back of his head, and forces him to look up at her.

“Close to four? Really close to the start of the class,” he says, uncertain.

“You know I _will_ pull up the time stamp on your keycard,” she points out, utterly unconcerned by his squirming. “Should I check? Do you want me to check or do you want to come clean to me right now? I would answer very carefully if I were you, pet.”

He always takes the threat in her voice seriously. He has learned from his nearly fatal mistakes.

“I might have arrived around two-thirty,” he admits, the fight going out of him. He slumps and lets out a loud exhale, as her grip in his hair loosens. “I didn’t remember about lunch till about half way through my class.”

She sighs, and considers his prone form. His head is bent low again, now that she has let go of his hair. She leans back against the couch and bites her lip. She had believed they were past this; that they were ready to move past Oliver’s forgetfulness to eat.

Years on the island meant his body had gotten used to ignoring or not feeling the pangs of hunger, until the point of total collapse. For the first several months of their new arrangement, Felicity’s entire focus had been getting Oliver to eat properly again. Several of her rules were food-related. She required that he cook for them both, that he eat four small meals a day, that he go grocery shopping, that he decide and set the menu. When she gave him control over components of meals, he was more likely to actually consume what was on the plate.

When he failed, well, let’s just say that Felicity’s punishments were creative enough to make him remember.

Clearly, that lesson needed a fresh reminder.

“I am sorry,” he tries again, eyes big and wet. She knows he hates these punishments more than most. There are some that he unashamedly looks forward to. This one, he plainly hates and usually, brings out the heart-eyes to try and avoid.

“On your feet,” she barks out, and he jumps to his feet like an electrocuted man. “To the dining table. Sit your ass down and eat your dinner. I will sit in this nice chair and watch.”

“Please, Felicity,” he begs, pleading.

“It has been four months. Four months of you being good, of you not breaking any of the food rules, and then you go and do this. Not only did you break a rule, you also tried to lie to me about it, even though I asked you point blank,” she snaps, angry now. She has had a long day, and she is hungry; but this is not about her. This is about the rules she put in place for situations like this. For every meal that Oliver misses, Felicity will miss two. That is his punishment: every time he starves himself, he should do it remembering that he is starving her too.

It is easily the most effective punishment she has ever used on him.

“I am so sorry,” he continues, “I honestly forgot – “

“Why are you still talking?” she barks. She digs out her tablet computer from her bag on the couch and settles at the dining table. She might as well clear away some of her email if she is not going to be enjoying the parmigiana. “Less talking, more eating.”

“But – “

“One more word and you will be tied up faster than you can say ‘please’, mister,” she reaches around the table and pulls out his chair for him. “Do you want to get spanked tonight?”

He sits, picks up his fork and knife and wordlessly starts eating. His grimace worsens with every mouthful, as he chews while looking at her. She ignores him for the most part, her attention on her tablet. She shoots off several R&D related crises e-mails to Ray, asks her secretary to re-arrange her calendar for tomorrow and checks up on figures from accounting.

When she looks up again, his plate is half empty. He is playing with the fork, moving food around. She raises her eyebrows at him.

“I would like to negotiate,” he states calmly, and Felicity realizes that her sub has been replaced by the Arrow tonight. That has never ended well for him.

“I am not in a negotiating mood,” she replies, going back to her emails. “Finish your food.”

“Felicity,” he continues, trying to get her to look at him. “Please eat something.”

“You know the rules, pet,” she smirks. His baby blues are pain filled and watery, but she decides to stand firm on this. It took them months to get to this point. She is not going to back off on this. “Finish your food and clean up around here. I am going to change into something comfortable, that you may _not_ take off me later tonight.”

“Felicity,” he pleads again, begging without actually saying the words.

She leaves him there in the living room to catch her breath and gather her thoughts. She is not as worried about his lying to her as she is about the missed meal. The Arrow misses meals all the time, because, after all, crime and bad guys wait for no vigilante to finish a sandwich. She knows that. She devised rules around that. The lair has a mini fridge stocked with several foods that he can walk and bite at the same time. Energy drinks, smoothies, finger food, salads are available at every site both Oliver Queen and the Arrow visit during a given day. This morning, Oliver had packed her lunch and taken a baggie with him to the lair. She knows the Arrow would have seen it when he changed out of his greens into civvies before the class. She comes to the inevitable conclusion.

He saw it, but did not want to eat.

*****

**_Then_ **

_He is in a lot of pain._

_She sees it every day. She sees how much he gives this city, without taking or asking for anything back. He gives more than any man should or could. Every day that he returns to the lair with a new limp, a new scar, bleeding wounds or shards of bullets stuck in inconvenient places, she watches him shrug it off and get up again for a new morning._

_Nobody understands him._

_Those that want to understand him, he doesn’t let them close. He is an expert at shutting people out. Laurel, Sara, Thea, his mother, sometimes, even Diggle – none of them can break down the walls he has built around himself. It is the world’s strongest defense mechanism and the worst coping method._

_He is not coping._

_His shoulders show the strain every single night, the tightness, the lines of his face, the grimace around his mouth, his rapid breathing and restless sleep, haunted by nightmares. He eats infrequently, and sleeps even less. He takes out his anger and frustration on punching bags and yoga mats, on the ladder and in a boxing ring. But even after hours of physical exertion, he comes away with the same ghosts haunting his shadows._

_He walks like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders. Perhaps he does._

_She wishes she could make him forget for one night._

_*_

**Now**

After he has put everything away, she calls him to the bedroom. He walks in, head ducked but right hand extended, seeking her. She takes it, and pulls him closer to draw him into a kiss.

“Kneel,” she whispers against his cheek. He smiles at her, resigned to his fate, before dropping to his knees.

She pulls his grey t-shirt over and off his head and throws it to the side. He will pick it up tomorrow and throw it in the laundry. He folds his hands behind his back, and she walks around him to tie his wrists together. They have never needed anything fancy for bondage. Usually, a length of rope and an angry glare from her are enough to keep him in place.

Coming back around to his front, she yanks him by the hair and meets his eyes.

“What did you do wrong today?”

“I lied to you.”

“About what?”

“When you asked me if I had done anything wrong, I didn’t come clean.”

“What else?”

“I tried to make up for rule breaking by making you something special.”

“No, pet,” she snaps, shaking her head. “No. Either you really are not getting the point or you are being deliberately obtuse. So once again, what did you do wrong?”

A beat of silence, and then, “I skipped lunch.”

She yanks his hair and he groans. She knows his pain tolerance is above that of most adults. Once, she and Barry had hooked him up to a medical diagnostic device that measured pain on a scale of one to ten. Oliver’s “ _I am fine, guys”_ had translated to “ _Your pain broke our scale”_ on the machine. She knows that her yanking his hair is not even registering on his personal pain scale, that he is only turned on by her aggression.

“Was today a situation where skipping lunch is okay?”

“No,” he replies, immediate and resigned. She yanks harder, pulling him upright by his hair, his spine curved and sending his torso leaning forward.

“No what?”

“No, Felicity,” he grits out. His pupils are dilated, and his mental gears are getting ready to slip into sub-space. _Not yet,_ she tells herself.

“What is the food rule?”

“Um-hmm?”

She slaps him hard across the cheek, and he jerks back. She grabs him by the hair again, while thanking the stars for having the foresight to ask him to grow it out. While it is useful as a punishment, she had been surprised to find out how much Oliver Queen could be turned on by hair pulling.

“Pay attention, pet. You are in enough trouble as it is,” she holds his head back and watches him swallow, his throat moving with difficulty. “What is the food rule?”

“That I don’t skip a meal, unless it is an Arrow emergency,” he repeats from memory, the words tumbling out comfortably.

“What is the punishment if you break the rule?”

“That you miss two meals for every meal I miss,” he replies, quieter this time. “I am sorry, Felicity.”

“You will be,” she states, letting go of his hair to pull off his shoes and socks. She considers getting him out of his trousers, but nudity as punishment has never worked for them. At this point, stripping him would be about her and not him, which is not the message she wants to send tonight. She lets the pants be. “Why are you being punished now?”

“For lying to you,” he replies, contrite. “And for trying to make up for rule breaking.”

“Corner, now.”

A shadow comes over his face, and she sees the gears in his mind turning. His expression sours, and within seconds, he is trying to not look horrified and failing at it.

“Please,” he begs, and she grows more annoyed. When they started this, she had researched for hours trying to find the right punishment. Oliver had taken a lot of abuse on the island and as the Arrow. There are very few things that get him worked up or worried. It had made sense later that he absolutely loathes sensory deprivation.

He is a seasoned archer, a fighter who relies on his hearing, sight and smell to survive. When you take that away from him, he breaks down entirely. They had discussed this, and he had agreed that this would be one of the _bad_ punishments, the ones that he is not intended to enjoy.

“Oliver, I am not in the mood for your stubbornness tonight,” she snaps, and he scuffs on his knees to the corner of their bedroom. She reaches for the industry-grade earmuffs from the closet, a blindfold and one of his ties.

“You will stay for 60 minutes. I will tap you three times on the shoulder when the time is up,” she tells him. “Do you understand? Use your words.”

“Yes, Felicity.”

“I am going to blindfold you now,” she states, working the dark fabric over his eyes. Who is punishing whom really? She hates hiding away his beautiful eyes. “Then, the earmuffs and the gag. Give me a color.”

“Green,” he says, and she hears the pout in his voice.

She places a remote buzzer in his palm.

“If you want to safeword, you will ring that buzzer. Do it for me once now, go on.”

He thumbs the button on the remote and a shrill beep fills the room. It is loud enough to be heard anywhere in the apartment.

“Good boy,” she runs her fingers through his hair again. “Tell me. What will you do if you want to safeword?”

“I will ring the buzzer.”

“Very well,” she replies. “I will leave this room at some point, but I will not leave the apartment. I don’t want you moving. Do you understand? Move, and I will know. Upright, spine straight. Focus on your breathing.”

She gags him with the rolled up tie, and puts the earmuffs on. She calls his name once, and he shows no sign of having heard it. She sets a timer for sixty minutes on her phone and walks out to the living room.

**_*_ **

**_Then_ **

_She sees him nearly self-destruct after Tommy’s death._

_He loses control, and the strain of keeping the Hood away from Laurel and salvaging the city after the quake get to him. She worries about him. She worries about how she doesn’t have a memory of him smiling._

_Diggle tries his best. He tries to get Oliver to eat, to sleep, to take it easy now and then. Oliver, as always, is an obstinate mule. Thea thinks Oliver needs hugs and love. Felicity is so angry at him sometimes, that she thinks all he needs is someone to forgive him for his assumed sins and put him to bed._

_She reads a lot of biology journals. She learns about what adrenaline and dopamine do to the body. She learns why too much adrenaline can be fatal. She learns about PTSD, about recovering trauma victims, about sleeplessness and long-term stress._

_She worries even more._

_They get together months after Tommy’s death. It is one night of angry, passionate, drunken sex that starts them off. She expects him to take off in the morning, regretful and sorry. He stays. He smiles at her and tells her she is good for him, and if she wants, he will try to be good for her too._

_They start their lives again with a new tune, a new song, a new dance._

*****

**Now**

Between Oliver’s work at the Academy, her work at Palmer Tech as CEO and Oliver and Thea’s joint running of Verdant, they generate a lot of mail. Usually, Oliver goes through everything on Saturdays, but the Arrow had been busy chasing bank robbers last weekend, so she spreads the pile out on the coffee table and works her way through them.

When the Queens had lost most of their wealth, neither Thea nor Oliver put up any real fight for the company. Neither of them wanted to hang on to anything that reminded them of the past, of their mother or the Undertaking. The money felt tainted anyway.

They did salvage Verdant and Thea worked full-time managing the club. Oliver helped her out from time to time, but most of his time was spent at the Academy with Diggle. Together, they had managed to build a thriving business, while teaching the women of Starling City some invaluable self-defense skills. Oliver had initially worried that someone would put together the vigilante’s fighting technique to the Queen scion at _Viridis_ (the name of the Academy; really, Oliver needed to let the Green thing go), but so far, the press had far more serious things to worry about than Oliver Queen’s latest business venture.

She sighs, sitting back on the couch and thinking about how far they had come. When Ray had made Felicity CEO to take over R&D full-time at Palmer Tech, she found herself surprised to be thriving in the role (the Pepper to my Tony, he called her). Now and then, her fingers itched to build new software and write code, so Ray usually indulged her and sent some of the most challenging coding work to her desk. Between running a company, and keeping the Arrow safe, she had her hands full.

Bank statements, credit card bills, coupons and fashion catalogs, she sorts through them all. Twenty minutes later, she goes to the bedroom to check on Oliver. From experience, she knows how long he can usually last without panicking.

Sure enough, she finds him breathing fast and sweating in the corner. Gently, she runs her hand down his arm. He flinches, taken by surprise before calming down. He leans into her touch, but he is still breathing too rapidly for her comfort. She grabs his pulse point at the wrist and rubs her thumb over it.

It is their way of communicating; she is asking him to take deep breaths and focus on where her finger is touching his pulse. He understands, and starts breathing slow and deep. She nudges his back, and he straightens his spine. She pulls away to brush his hair down, and his lips stretch around the gag. An attempt at a smile, his acknowledgement of her gesture: _good boy._

She stays for another minute or so, running her hand up and down his back, until he is breathing normally and staying still. Color has returned to his cheeks. She is confident that he can finish this punishment, but she moves the pile of her work from the coffee table to their bed anyway. She misses him, and staying in the empty living room reminds her of how hungry she is.

Lyla calls forty minutes into the hour. They chat about baby Sara’s antics at play school, about Oliver’s chicken cordon bleu recipe, about going shopping together next week and gossip over their boys. Felicity had believed that joining Oliver’s crusade would cause her social life to take a hit. Life has a way of surprising her: Lyla has become one of her closest friends, Dig is the brother she had always wanted, and Thea is the partner in crime Felicity had missed during school and university.

With ten minutes left to go, she finds Oliver fidgeting. He is moving weight between his left and right knee, and his wrists are chafing against the ropes. She gives him a minute, to see if he will thumb the buzzer. Nothing.

This is just Oliver being bored and obstinate and uncomfortable.

She runs her forefinger down his back, a _warning._ She traces the number ten on his back, once, twice and again. Ten additional minutes of punishment, _stay still or else._ He stills instantly, and straightens up.

She watches droplets of sweat run down the toned muscles of his back, fall from a strand of hair down the sharp angle of his nose, watches the curl of his fingers in his palm clutching the buzzer, the gentle curve of the inner sole of his foot, the scars along the sides of his torso, the tattoos and the marks of survival littered over his body, an everyday reminder of this man’s heroism and courage. She adjusts the timer on her phone and adds the extra ten minutes.

*

**_Then_ **

_Six months into their new relationship, she makes up her mind._

_She sits him down in her living room one night, long after Diggle has gone home to Lyla and hands him a folder. It is a culmination of months of research, desire and passion. If he says yes, it might be the beginning of something else. It might be a way for him to heal. She wants him to heal._

_If it is forgiveness that he needs, she can give him that._

_He opens the folder, and raises his eyebrow at her. She shrugs at him, then takes the opposite chair to hold his hand. He sits at her tiny dining table for nearly three hours, pouring over the contract, looking through her notes, photographs, and post-its. He grabs her chewed-out red pen (yes, that one) and makes edits, underlines and strikes out things. He adds stipulations, he removes some of hers, and decides on safewords._

_They spend two weeks negotiating, discussing, strengthening and iron-cladding that document before agreeing to give it a go._

*

**Now**

Oliver has an eerily accurate internal clock, so at the sixty minute mark, he fidgets again, trying to sense her presence around him. She traces the ten on his forearm this time, reminding him of time left. He stills again.

She taps her foot along the leg of the bed and sees him flinch. He can probably feel the vibrations through the floor. Oliver never stops being hyperaware of his surroundings. With his sight and hearing lost, his other senses are over compensating.

Finally, after what seems forever even to her, she taps him three times on the shoulder.

He crumples.

He falls forward, spine curving, breath coming rapid, loud and quick. He is gasping for breath but is struggling around the gag. She catches him under the arms, and holds him close, his head to her chest, rubbing his back in a soothing motion.

The earmuffs come off first and he flinches, motion jerky and sudden. Every little sound seems amplified after going so long without hearing, she knows, so she gives him time between each one.

“Hush now, shh, I have you, I got you,” she whispers at the lowest volume she can manage. “Good boy, my brave boy, you were so good for me. Shh, shh, I have you. Breathe through your nose, just breathe for me now.”

He shudders and shakes in her arms, and she feels his breathing undulating against her chest.  

“Hush, you were so good. I am going to take the blindfold off now, okay? Nod if you understand.”

He nods, slow and hesitant, face still buried in her chest.

Slowly, she undoes the knot of the blindfold at the back of his head, and lets it drop. He blinks his eyes open, blinking a few times before adjusting to the light in the room. They are watery, and a gorgeous tear drop makes its way down his left cheek. She catches it with the tip of her tongue.

“Beautiful boy,” she whispers to him. “So brave for me. Spit out the gag for me, go on.”

She helps pull out the tie, and he wheezes, finding the taste of the tie strange and foreign. She reaches for a wet towel and wipes around his mouth, where he has drooled around the makeshift gag. She makes a mental note to throw the tie in the laundry tonight. She will make him wear it tomorrow to work, because every time he will catch sight of it during the day, he will flush beautifully to the tips of his hair.

“Easy, easy, here, take a sip, go on,” she presses a bottle of water in his hands and rubs his back as he takes slow, hesitant gulps. “Good boy.”

“Give me a color, baby,” she says. “Let me hear that pretty voice. Give me a color.”

A beat of silence, and then, “Green.” His voice is raspy from disuse for so long.

“Your favorite, okay,” she smiles, running her hands through his hair. She makes him finish half the bottle of water before moving on. She will never stop finding his soft hair attractive. She will never stop feeling the tendrils through her fingers. It’s addictive.

“I am going to untie you now. Say ‘yellow’ if you want more time. Use your words, baby.”

“Green,” he says, and she is glad that his voice is back to normal, at the serene tone he uses when he talks to her.

“Good boy,” she reiterates, and undoes the knots around his wrists. She rubs feeling back into his arms, slow and gentle, and makes him stretch and flex them a number of times before pulling him to his feet and seating him on the edge of the bed.

“You were so good for me,” she tells him. “You can have a reward. You can choose what you want. Go on.” She looks at his groin, and there is no tell-tale bulge there. She is not surprised. Corner time never excites him. He is too busy being jittery and nervous for that.

He is looking up at her through his eyelashes, and she feels her heart literally skip a beat. Oliver Queen being shy and timid is her kryptonite. She will give him anything he asks for when he pulls the shy act. Unfortunately, he knows it very well and tries to use it to his advantage often.

“Go on,” she encourages, standing between his knees and clasping her hands behind his neck.

“Will you eat something, please?”

She smiles. Typical Oliver, always trying to find a loophole.

“No,” she states. “You cannot have a negation of the punishment as a reward. That is you being sneaky. Try again.”

He pouts, and ducks his head again.

“Yeah no,” she grins. “Not buying the poor, innocent, little rich boy act. Try again.”

His silence stretches. She stands there, giving him his time and playing with his hair again. The roots are dark but grow into a lighter pale blonde. She has seen pictures of Oliver before the island with blonde hair, but seeing the real thing is different altogether. In the hood, the blonde looks magnificent against the emerald of the fabric, and her breath hitches every time she sees him in it.

“Baby?” she prompts, after nearly five minutes of silence.

“Um-hm,” he hums against her palm. “Can you do what you did that night of –“

“Nah-ah,” she shakes her head. “Words. Actual words. What do you want?” She will make a talker out of him yet; it’s one of her personal goals and she is very determined when she wants to be.

More silence, and then a quiet murmur, too quiet for her to catch.

“Again,” she insists. “Louder, please.” He is being really shy about wanting this. Whatever it is, he must have liked it more than he let on.

“Can you please cuff me to the bed?”

“What, while you sleep?” she asks, surprised. She had done that one night. As punishment, she had cuffed his ankle to the bedpost and made him beg for permission in the morning to be released.

He nods, still refusing to look up at her.

“Liked that, did you?” she asks, but continues without waiting for a response. “Every day, I find out something new about you, Oliver Queen.”

She holds his face between his hands, and leans down to kiss him on the lips.

“Alright,” she moves to the dresser to retrieve a pair of handcuffs. “Get in bed. Do you need to use the bathroom?”

She has her back turned to him, but she knows he is shaking his head right now.

“Words, pet,” she reiterates from her position, crouched in front of the dresser.

“No, Felicity,” she hears him exhale sharply. “I don’t need to use the bathroom.”

“We are going to strengthen some of our words-rules tomorrow,” she announces. “I am being too lenient with you about this.” Sunday is their day off from this arrangement. Sunday is the day they are just Oliver and Felicity. They can negotiate on equal footing that day.

She cuffs his right ankle to the bed post, kisses him on the forehead and slides in next to him. He is out within minutes. She isn’t surprised. Punishments usually take a lot out of him.

She plays Candy crush on her phone for a while, before she drifts off, her mind thinking of creative ways to make him beg for freedom in the morning.

*

**_Then_ **

_The first time Oliver Queen kneels for her, she feels a warm buzz spreading throughout her body._

_His back is bowed, his chin meeting his chest, eyelashes curled down, gaze lowered, he is the picture of perfect submission. She ties his wrists together, tight and unyielding. They both know he can get out of it in seconds, perhaps even less if he felt like it. But the point is that he submits to the bondage, that he stays still because she orders him to._

_The first time, she does not even strip him down. She unbuttons his shirt and lets it hang off his strong shoulders. His slacks are grey, pressed creases still sharp and visible, the fabric tight around his thighs. He has killed a man with those thighs, she knows, because she has heard him scream about it at night in his sleep._

_His chest is visible in the dim light of her living room, as he kneels, head still bowed. His breathing is too fast, panicked and raggedy. He does not do well when his motion is limited, when his options are few, when freedom seems to be taken away. But that is the point. She wants him to learn to let go in a safe space, she wants to be his safe space._

_An Oliver Queen who does not need to control every single variable of his life is a happier Oliver Queen. She can give him that. She will demand it of him, that he concede control._

_She makes him close his eyes._

_No blindfolds. Nothing to help him block his senses. He will do it willingly, those are her terms._

_For every time he gives in to his instincts and flutters his eyelids open, she adds fifteen minutes to his punishment. He will stay still, bound, immobile and blind for longer and longer every time he loses control._

_Eight minutes in, he rests his ass back on his calves. She adds fifteen minutes for that._

_She does not want him relaxing. She wants him upright, weight on his kneecaps, making up with his hearing for his lack of sight. She wants his entire being focused on the pain in his limbs and the strain on his senses._

_When they start, she sets him sixty minutes of absolute stillness. He earns himself another ninety minutes with his fidgeting and moving._

_When she finally eases him out of his bindings, when she rubs his forearms to get circulation going again, when she lets him fall back on her, his head on her shoulder, he opens his beautiful, baby blues and looks at her like she is a miracle._

_He is peaceful, quiet and broken._

_He is tired._

_She puts him to bed, and for once he goes, quiet and pliant in her arms._

_*_

**Now**

On Sunday morning, he wakes her up by trailing kisses along her back. She groans and cuddles deeper into the pillows, content to be in this moment. They have nowhere to be, Diggle is protecting the city as the Arrow, and they are simply Oliver and Felicity today.

He knows she is awake, so he puts more effort into his attentions. His hands reach around to play with her breasts, and he holds her close, her back to his chest. She feels his lips spread into a smile along her collarbone, where he nips at the skin.

Usually, she would throw him out of the bed for trying to leave a hickey somewhere visible, but it _is_ Sunday. He is feeling daring and she is in a giving mood.

“Being brave, are we?” she asks, already knowing his answer.

She runs her leg along his, and feels the absence of the handcuff on his ankle. He must have slipped it after waking up.

“It’s Sunday,” he murmurs into her skin, nibbling the top of her ear. He is playing with her hair, fingers slipping between the strands and straightening out the kinks. It is such a reversal of their usual dynamic, when she can’t get enough of his hair and he isn’t allowed to touch hers. She thinks that he waits out the entire week for a chance to touch her hair again.

“So it is,” she replies and turns in his arms to face him. “Any plans, Mr. Queen?”

“None without you, Ms. Smoak,” he smiles, and dips down to catch her lips in his.

They stay like that, in their own little piece of forever.

~ finis ~ _  
_

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please, please please review!  
> I have several other snippets from this universe, which I will publish if I get some response that people don't entirely hate this. 
> 
> Find me on [Tumblr](http://baffledkingcomposinghallelujah.tumblr.com/)
> 
> (I am taking Olicity prompts.)


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